Elspeth has all her time filled up making preparations for the wedding; she doesn't seem to miss me as I do her, which is after all not strange. I seem to be the girl in this affair and she the man. Every day I suffer more and more. Now the boys have nearly all got measles and I am picturing myself as getting them too just when she arrives. I have every sort of foreboding and dread on me all day and all night. I haven't slept since I came back this term. I wish I knew what was the matter with me. Day after day I watch for the post, waiting for the offer of some job to arrive. From the morning till the evening post seems a lifetime--but in the end I have been rewarded for my vigilant and arduous search. I have just heard from the Head Master of Marlton that he would like to see me on Wednesday with a view to my taking a post on his staff in September. I have written to Elspeth to meet me in London and come the rest of the way with me. I also mean to bring her back with me to Radchester: I can't stand the strain of this any longer. _June 11, 1913_ I went to see Marlton and Elspeth joined me in London. It is as about as different from Radchester as Heaven from Hell. It is about the most beautiful old town I have ever seen. The country round is densely wooded, with undulating hills of no very great height, but extraordinarily picturesque. After leaving Lewes--it's in Sussex--one seems to lose all touch with the hurry of modern life: only the slowest of slow trains stops at Marlton. We were met at the old-world station, at which no one seems ever to alight, by a courteous old butler, who led us up past the castle and the kennels to the Priory, a huge Gothic church most beautifully proportioned, with flying buttresses on the north and south. The school is an adjunct of the Priory and is exactly like an Oxford College: it has the same perfectly kept lawns, the same remoteness from actuality, the same quaint old cloisters and tiny courts and quadrangles. All the buildings are hoary with age and ivy-covered. The Head Master's house is set right in the middle of the school buildings: the boys live in more modern houses scattered here and there about the town. The Head Master and his wife were exceedingly pleasant both to Elspeth and myself. They showed us over the buildings, which are indescribably beautiful; the boys are all quieter and far more gentlemanly than the northerners and looked attractive and friendly. We went down to the playing fields and watched them at cricket. They have none of our absurd rules here: there are no bounds and boys are given as much personal liberty as if they were at home. It will be splendid to teach in such a place. Both Elspeth and I were enchanted with it. After a titanic battle, I managed to get her to agree to come back to Radchester to stay for a few days with the Head Master of the Preparatory School, who has always been good to me. Poor Elspeth! When she saw the bleak desolate plain of Radchester she nearly